What The Fear?!

How does fear show up in our bodies? In this episode I'm joined by Jake Mahal to explore the way the human body has evolved to respond to fear and what happens when we find ourselves in survival mode for too long.

Jake Mahal is a metabolic health specialist and health coach who helps busy, capable people understand why they feel tired, foggy or unlike themselves and how to rebuild the energy, clarity and resilience they need to live fully again.

Together we explore how modern life itself can put our bodies into fear mode - through what we eat, how we move, our sleep, our light exposure, our environment and our relationships - and what it actually takes to build energy, clarity and resilience once we understand what our bodies are responding to.

We unpack:

If you've ever normalised a low-level hum of tiredness or tension - this conversation will give you a whole new way of looking at it.

About Guest

Jake Mahal is a metabolic health specialist, ancestral health coach and founder of Whole Life Health. He is a Primal Health Coach at Master Coach level and a MovNat certified trainer, registered with UKIHCA, with a background in sports science and over 20 years of coaching experience.

Many of the people Jake works with are doing their best to eat well, stay active and keep everything moving, yet still find themselves running on caffeine, pushing through energy crashes or wondering whether feeling this way is simply part of getting older. Jake helps them see that these symptoms are not personal failings. They are often signs that the body is struggling with the demands and rhythms of modern life.

Find out more at https://wholelifehealth.uk/

How does fear show up in high-stakes conversations? In this episode I'm joined by former hostage negotiator Nigel Taberner to explore how to diffuse tension, build trust and communicate under pressure when the stakes are high.

Nigel spent 10 years as a hostage negotiator with Greater Manchester Police, successfully resolving over 130 incidents. He now brings the same skills he honed in that world - and his unique perspective on communication, resilience and emotional intelligence - into boardrooms and conference stages, helping business leaders navigate the conversations that matter most.

Together we explore how to manage fear when lives are at stake, what it takes to build trust from nothing and what a hostage negotiator's world can teach the rest of us about difficult conversations.

We look at:

If you’ve got a conversation ahead of you that you know you want to get right, this episode will help you walk into it with more clarity and confidence. 

About Guest

Nigel Taberner has over 30 years of operational experience with Greater Manchester Police and Counter-Terrorism Policing North West, serving in a wide variety of front-line and investigative roles. At the height of his career, he was a Detective Inspector responsible for counter-terrorism policing operations.

During his 10 years as a hostage negotiator, Nigel deployed to over 130 incidents, successfully resolving armed sieges, domestic and international kidnaps, and high-risk suicide interventions. He has delivered negotiation training to UK police officers, Special Forces personnel, and international colleagues from the FBI, Finland and Australian police forces.

He now brings these transferable skills into business, helping leaders and teams communicate under pressure, build trust and negotiate effectively.

Find out more at www.nigeltaberner.com

How does fear show up in high pressure situations - from war zones to board rooms? In this episode I’m joined by former CIA analyst Rupal Patel to explore how someone who has faced genuine danger, experiences fear in everyday work life. 

Rupal Patel’s high-octane career has taken her from military briefing rooms in jungles and war zones to corporate boardrooms and international stages. As a sought-after international speaker, corporate consultant and board advisor she delivers leadership and executive development programmes for Fortune 500 companies, and serves as visiting faculty at business schools across the US and Europe.

Together we discuss how fear, ego and adrenaline play out when the stakes are high, what actually holds a team together under pressure, and the surprising truth about which world - the CIA or civilian leadership - triggers more fear.

We explore:

If you've ever had to walk into a high-pressure room and hold your own - this one's for you.

About Guest

Rupal Patel spent her career at the CIA advising Four-Star Generals, earning War Zone Service commendations, and being recognised by the CIA Director for "superior support to the President of the United States." After leaving the CIA, she earned her MBA and started her first business over a decade ago.

She is now an international speaker, corporate consultant and board advisor, delivering leadership and executive development programmes for Fortune 500 companies, and serves as visiting faculty at business schools across the US and Europe. She has been featured in USA Today, Business Insider and CNBC, and her work includes pro bono support for Virgin Startup and Techstars, roles as Entrepreneur in Residence at London Business School and Alumni in Residence at the University of Chicago, and serving as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

She is the author of the international bestseller From CIA to CEO: Unconventional Life Lessons for Thinking Bigger, Leading Better, and Being Bolder.

Find out more at: www.rupalypatel.com 

Substack: https://rupalypatel.substack.com/ 

When change is high, workload feels high. But what if it's not your workload - it's your thoughtload? In this episode I'm joined by Liane Davey to explore the real culprit behind the overwhelm, chaos and burnout experienced by so many teams. 

For the past 25 years, Liane has researched and advised teams on how to achieve high performance. Known as the “Teamwork Doctor,” she helps teams replace workplace drama with accountability, empathy, and impact.

Together we explore how fear hijacks our attention, our emotions and our energy - and why the very thing our brains have evolved to do best, is what’s making work so hard.

We discuss:

If your team's capacity feels maxed out, this conversation will give you practical ways to ease the load.

About Guest

Known internationally as the "Teamwork Doctor," Liane Davey is a keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling author who helps teams replace workplace drama with accountability, empathy, and impact. Her high energy, research-backed keynotes tackle the burnout, overload, constant change, and conflict weighing people down at work - delivering candid humor and practical tools leaders can use immediately.

Liane's book, Thoughtload: Manage the Madness and Free Your Team to Do Great Work, addresses the mental overload crushing today's teams. A frequent Harvard Business Review contributor, she has worked with hundreds of teams worldwide across 26 Fortune 500 companies and counting.

Find out more at thoughtload.com

How do you design an organisation with less fear? In this episode I’m joined by Mack Fogelson, an organisational designer who helps leaders and companies build braver cultures in complex systems. Organisations are rarely designed with fear in mind, but for Mack, it shows up in every layer of how work actually gets done. 

Mack pioneers practical, human-centered approaches to change, helping organizations move from burnout and reactivity toward clarity, shared power, experimentation, and resilient ways of working. Her work weaves together systems thinking, organizational design, and Brené Brown’s research on courage, belonging, and vulnerability.

Together we look at how fear shows up in an organisation - from strategy and process, to culture and leadership behaviours - and what it takes to build organisations that work with uncertainty, rather than against it.

We explore:

If your organisation feels stuck in the same patterns no matter how many plans or processes you put in place - this conversation is for you.

About Guest

Mack Fogelson is an organizational designer, executive advisor, and cultural transformation strategist who helps leaders and companies build braver cultures in complex systems. 

She partners with entrepreneurs, executives, and teams around the world - from high-growth companies to organizations like Apple - to redesign how work actually gets done and create systems that support both performance and humanity. 

Mack is a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator in Brené Brown’s community. Featured in The Economist. Mack writes about uncertainty, power, and how we work together in a fractured world

Find out more at mackfogelson.com

What brings people together? What drives them apart? And what's fear got to do with it? In this episode I'm joined by Alison (Ali) Goldsworthy to explore polarisation at work, and why it's rarely as simple as differing opinions.

Co-author of the bestselling book Poles Apart, Ali has spent over 25 years working in politics and movement building. The recent focus of her work is to reduce political polarisation when it reaches excessive levels, supporting businesses, nonprofits and universities. 

Together we unpack how fear breeds polarisation and vice versa - how it affects our thinking, judgement and decision making, and the implications on team work, organisations and society.

We discuss:

If you've ever found yourself dismissing someone before you've really heard them - or wondered what it takes to build a diverse team, rather than a divided one - this conversation will help.

About Guest

Alison (Ali) Goldsworthy is the co-author of the bestselling book Poles Apart, founder of The Depolarization Project and host of the podcast Changed My Mind. Her work focuses on reducing political polarisation when it reaches excessive levels, supporting businesses, nonprofits and universities. 

She previously led the team behind the UK's fastest-growing consumer movement at Which?, successfully introducing opt-out organ donation in Wales, and has worked in both Parliament and the Senedd. Poles Apart is now a course she lectures with The Intellectual Forum, Jesus College, Cambridge and she lectures at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, overseeing work on their Leadership for Society program.

Find out more: https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/the-depolarization-project/

What if the way you’ve learned to succeed is the very thing that’s exhausting you? In this episode I’m joined by Dr Pippa Grange - performance psychologist and coach with more than 25 years’ experience working with elite performers across sport and industry.

Formerly Head of People and Team Development at The Football Association, she worked closely with Gareth Southgate and the England men’s football team during their journey to the 2018 World Cup semi-finals. Today, her work draws on performance psychology and ecological thinking to help individuals and teams sustain excellence without burning out.

Together we explore how overperformance becomes a way of being - and why it so often leaves us depleted rather than fulfilled. Pippa invites us to rethink what it really means to perform well, offering a radically healthier vision of success - one that is regenerative rather than extractive, and feels as good as it looks.

We discuss:

If you want to perform well - without losing yourself in the process - this conversation is for you.

About Guest

Dr Pippa Grange is a performance psychologist and coach with more than 25 years in the field, working with some of the world’s top performers across sport and industry. 

Formerly Head of People and Team Development at The Football Association, she worked closely with Gareth Southgate’s England men’s football team and is widely credited for her pivotal role in their success reaching the 2018 World Cup semi-finals. 

Her transformative work was portrayed in the smash-hit national play ‘Dear England’, which is currently being adapted into a four-part TV drama for BBC One. Her practice today draws on ecopsychology and performance principles to help individuals and groups sustain and thrive in all their performance adventures.

Find out more at www.pippagrange.com

What does it really take to create a culture where people speak up - consistently and constructively? In this episode I’m joined by Stephen “Shed” Shedletzky to explore what makes it both safe and worth it for people to use their voice.

Shed is a leadership speaker, coach and author of Speak-Up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up. As a thought leader on psychological safety in the workplace he helps leaders create environments where people feel able - and motivated - to contribute. 

Together we explore how fear shows up not only in the hesitation to speak, but in the resistance to hear, the ingredients that make a culture healthy or toxic, and why leadership is ultimately about care.

We discuss:

If you’ve ever held back from speaking up - or wondered why others aren’t telling you what you need to hear - this conversation offers a thoughtful and practical place to start.

About Guest

Stephen Shedletzky - or “Shed” to his friends - helps leaders make it safe and worth it for people to speak up. He supports humble leaders - those who know they are both part of the problems they experience and the solutions they can create - as they put people and purpose first.

A thought leader on psychological safety in the workplace, Shed is the author of Speak-Up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up. He is a sought-after speaker, coach and advisor who has led hundreds of keynotes and leadership programs around the world.

For more than a decade, Shed worked at Simon Sinek, Inc., serving as Chief of Staff and Head of Brand Experience, Training & Development, where he led a global team of speakers and facilitators. He is a graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business and received his coaching certification from The Co-Active Training Institute.

Find out more at shedinspires.com

What if fear isn’t weakness - but data? In this episode I’m joined by Susan Asiyanbi to explore what fear looks like in leadership - and what becomes possible when we stop pushing it down.

Susan is a strategist, pattern recogniser, and the person senior leaders call when facing their biggest leadership challenges. As CEO and founder of The Olori Network®, she and her team study what the strongest executives do differently - capturing the principles, practices and pitfalls of leadership - and bring those insights to bear in real time with CEOs and their teams.

Together we unpack how fear can hide in plain sight - in busyness, control, people-pleasing, or the pressure to prove you’re enough - and how those patterns ripple through teams when they go unnamed. Susan shares what shifts when leaders begin to treat fear as information, rather than weakness.

We discuss:

If you’re feeling stuck as a leader - this conversation will help you understand the patterns shaping your leadership and your team and offer a more freeing way to lead.

About Guest

Susan Asiyanbi is an executive advisor and operator with more than two decades of cross-sector leadership. She helps CEOs and senior teams navigate complexity, accelerate alignment, and strengthen the systems and relationships that drive performance.

Before founding The Olori Network®, Susan served as Chief Operating Officer at Teach For America, where she led operations across 51 regions and stewarded more than 2,000 staff — building high-performance teams capable of driving results while maintaining a strong culture, even amid significant change.

Earlier in her career, she held strategic and operational roles at Boston Consulting Group and Sears Holdings Corporation. Through The Olori Network®, Susan brings together everything she has learned: that strategy and culture must move together, and that leadership is ultimately about relationships, trust, and clarity in action.

Find out more at www.olorinetwork.com  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-asiyanbi/

Is curiosity just a personality trait - or a skill we can practise and develop? In this episode I’m joined by Dr. Jeff Wetzler to explore what shapes our capacity for curiosity - and how fear can interfere with it, especially when we need it most.

Jeff is a leadership and learning expert and the author of Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You. His work helps leaders and teams surface hidden insights, make smarter decisions, strengthen collaboration and unlock breakthrough ideas.

Together we unpack how fear can narrow our perspective and draw us toward certainty when questions might serve us better. We explore how curiosity - when developed intentionally - can strengthen the quality of our decisions, relationships and leadership.

We discuss:

If you value curiosity - but notice it’s hardest to access under pressure - this conversation offers a thoughtful and practical way forward.

About Guest

Dr. Jeff Wetzler is co-Founder and co-CEO of Transcend, an education innovation organization, and served as Chief Learning Officer at Teach For America. He has advised business, NGO, and government leaders around the world and has spoken at major companies such as Microsoft, Google, Deloitte, and DaVita, as well as startups and leading nonprofits.

His book, Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs In Leadership and Life, was named an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Books of 2024, a Next Big Idea Club Top Leadership Book of 2024, and widely endorsed by experts such as Adam Grant, Seth Godin, and Amy Edmondson. His work is regularly featured in leading publications including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Psychology Today. 

Wetzler earned a Doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Brown University. He is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is an Edmund Hillary Fellow. 

Find out more at www.askapproach.com